


(Don't you know I'm a…)

by ZeroMonster



Category: DCU
Genre: Batman The White Knight, Dick Grayson is Renegade, Everyone Has Issues, Jason Todd Club Owner, Jason Todd is Red Hood, M/M, Oh So Brief Description of Rough Sex, Sort Of, jaydick-flashfic: rumors and reputations
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 04:52:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,132
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18461867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZeroMonster/pseuds/ZeroMonster
Summary: Jason Todd has never met the leader of Deathstroke’s ex ragtag team of mercenaries, he’s only heard of him.





	(Don't you know I'm a…)

**Author's Note:**

> This is set on the Batman: White Knight 'verse, in which the Joker is 'cured' and tries to 'save' the city from the one person who he thinks is truly Gotham's greatest villain: Batman! You don't have to read it to understand what's happening here because I changed a lot of things, for starters Batman never had a Robin... I'm so sorry Bruce.

 

> _In the wrong light anyone can look like a darkness_
> 
> ― Richard Siken, War of the Foxes

 

 

When the Batman forced those pills down the Joker’s throat and the clown walked out of Arkham a politician bent on vilifying the Bat, it opened out the chest of the city. Gotham laid open, the wind cursing through her in an airstream that carried fear, distrust and violence with it.

 

The city changed, and it gave everyone the opportunity to change with it. Jason was one of the first to notice this and due to his uncanny ability of staying alive in a city that tore open your throat to feed the river with the water her people brought to their mouths, he managed to procure a business.

 

And then in a strike of luck that Jason was sure he didn’t deserve, he met Roy Harper and Jason bleed a lot in a process that resulted in his understanding the meaning of trust for the first time. Still to this day Jason said he was only happy they met because Roy brought Kori along. Kori was pure, packed firepower.

 

The three of them owned and managed The Lotto, in which no one, in fact, played the lottery; but in a neighborhood where the clubs where themed like The Ice Lounge, Jason didn’t feel very bad about the discordance. There was a lot of poker, though. And live music.

 

“So, you like?” the new guitarist asked. Jason passed her and the impromptu stage on his way to the garage. He gave her a thumbs up around the plasticized envelope he was holding and left her and her sister to their rehearsal.

 

The sound of strings followed him all the way to the Suzuki S750; $13,700 of a black and red dream in two wheels. Roy was already perched on a black Yamaha MT-09; stolen, family heirloom, Oliver Queen’s last unwittingly birthday present before Roy left him and all his contacts in the superhero community in the dust.  

 

Jason leaned on his parked bike and tore open the envelope where Roy could also see. The redhead took it from him and brought out the file that was inside. He flipped through it and his eyes widened.

 

“That bad?” Jason smirked. The pain under his left eye flared insistently, protesting.

 

And yet, for a man who had just survived the first _professional_ attempt on his life, he was not that bad off.

 

 

 

When the Joker started calling himself Jack Napier, he stole the last remnant of sanity Gotham had left and as payback, Jason stole a name. Roy didn't try to stop him as hard as he could have but he did ask why.

 

Well.

 

Once you almost die several times in the streets of a city you can start calling her your girl. Jason had the scars that matched with hers, like fucked up couple tattoos.

 

Gotham was a wolf and Jason had been born inside of it, he climbed out of its belly with a red cap by which to call himself and guts in his hands.

You know the fairy tale.

 

 

 

Here was the Red Hood now: with a contract on his head.

 

“Just your type, Jaybird,” Roy said. Jason couldn't read his tone. “The tough, can’t-get-enough, drop- _you_ -dead-gorgeous type. Oh, and there’s four of them.”

 

“You know,” he said. “I bet Kori threatened a lot of people for that info, least you could do is share.” Jason gestured impatiently at the file. Roy passed it over and crossed his arms. Jason began reading.

 

Files on Deathstroke from at least three different acronym organizations verifying the existence of multiple underage accessories of crime. Files on Ravager, Terra, Jericho and Renegade from _the Justice League_ , all under the Deathstroke profile. A pitch from Amanda Waller to get them on a team. Deathstroke caught on camera in the middle of a fight with Superman, four other people with him. A digital trail of Deathstroke contracts being redirected to Renegade and his team. And finally, high profile kills: KGBeast, Lady Vic, and David Cain.

 

Especially arranged, carefully leaked information that read like a morbid curriculum vitae.

 

This group was strangely proud of being associated with The Terminator.   

 

He frowned. “Isn’t Deathstroke in Belle Reve?”

 

“He is.” Roy revved the engine. “Rumor is they put him there.”

 

 

 

The man Jason had against the wall of the alley gave a pained grunt.

 

“Lets try this again,” he said.

 

It was dark but not yet night, artificial light broke against his helmet like the skin under his hands. It was late enough it wasn't unusual for the Red Hood to be out. He needed to know who was trying to kill him, after all.

 

A few hours later he’d crossed out the names of half of the criminal families in Gotham and put a knife through the shoulder of a crook who had ranted about how Jason’s fashion choices affected dear councilman Napier’s image.  

 

When Jason parked his bike, he could hear the music. The Lotto was a warehouse but they’d replaced the metal curtain with big, dark wood doors. He pushed them open and stepped into the throng of people. The place still had catwalks but the lights had been replaced by chandeliers and the corners were illuminated by neon lights: pink, orange, red playing over the opaque white boards that one time had been window panes.

 

The gaming tables were less crowded, Jason scanned them out of habit and filled away the faces of this week’s new patrons. He searched for Roy in the basement where they had their computers and where the redhead hid when alcohol became the night’s blood.

 

Jason always worried that owning a nightclub was the worst thing that could’ve happened to Roy’s sobriety, but the redhead had always insisted the problem were drugs, _not_ alcohol. Needless to say drugs were strictly banned from their club.

 

“Did you found out who did it?” Roy asked without turning around, he was busy typing furiously.

 

“Not exactly.”

 

“Do you want me to go back out there?”

 

“No need. With Carmine and Maroni out, Sionis’ the only one with the kind of reach and money to pay for what mercenaries with that kind of rep must charge.” Jason nodded at one of the screens where the masked faces of his would be assassins stared back at him.

 

The first time they’d come after him, there were only two of them. Jason tried to identify them. As they’d both been blonde it couldn’t have been Renegade, in the photo his hair was black and his mouth red from his busted lip, he was the only one smiling. Or not smiling, more like baring his teeth. Jason stared at the photo for longer that he should have trying to decide if it was feral or charming.

 

“Did you find anything?” He made himself look away and address Roy.

 

“I think I’m well on the way to discover Terra’s identity but I don’t know if it’ll make any difference. I’m focusing on trying to find anything I can about Renegade.”

 

“What about the other two?”

 

“They’re Deathstroke’s kids.”

 

“That’s fucked up.”

 

“Just slightly more fucked up than what he did to the other two that _weren’t_ his kids.”

 

The screen flashed with a notification. “Well, shit,” Roy said.

 

As it turned out Roy found a single mention of Renegade in a record of Gotham's State Reformatory.  No real name, just a recount from another kid that had talked about him with the social worker.

 

“Your boy was a legacy for the Falcone,” Roy said. Jason whistled, more impressed with that than with every horrible thing he’d read in the mercenary’s file.

 

“Would you look at that.”

 

A legacy was a member of an all-child proto gang with real affiliations to the real deal. They usually formed inside juvie and upon getting out did petty jobs for the senior members. It was rough, potentially deadly. Jason himself hadn't joined anyone in his time in juvie that time they'd gotten him under fake claims of prostitution when they couldn't get him for manslaughter. Even though those crimes had been mutually exclusive, kid-Jason had killed that man _because_ he hadn't been prostituting himself.

 

And no, he had no time to even _begin_ to unpack all of that.

 

“It was fourteen years ago.” Roy brought up newspaper articles and television recordings on the screens. “Around the time the family imploded and lot of gang members were smoked out and some killed. No one saw him again.”

 

What the fuck had he been doing in Gotham in the first place? Had he been born here?

 

“There's an ID number on the prison databank that could be him but…it's blank. Someone erased it,” Roy finished.

 

Renegade was proud of being affiliated with Deathstroke, he was maybe less proud about everything else he'd done.

 

 

 

He didn’t notice him until the second time he glanced at the gaming tables, when in his periphery he saw a jaw he wanted to bruise--and then he couldn’t look away.

 

Jason saw him sitting at the head of the poker table, blue suited with a scotch in hand. He sat with the kind of confidence of someone who knew the exact space his body occupied, skin a bronze color and luster, the fullest lips Jason had ever seen with a bow to bring a man to his knees.

 

His gaze snapped up and found Jason’s immediately. He felt his breath catch in the back of his throat, instinctual response not to the beauty but to the intensity of it. After a long second his brow smoothed with understanding and then his face was transforming again, this time into a smirk.  

 

Jason had every intention to pick him up, keep him pinned under him and slam his body into his, but Roy came out to find him, brought him news of an attack on downtown Gotham. He expected Ivy or Two Face or The Riddler, not this new girl calling herself Neo Joker.

 

 

 

No one died in the actual fight and Jason only caught the aftermath but it was enough to stir the people again, like whipped horses. Jason was getting really fed up with clowns.

 

When he woke up that morning--afternoon?--Kori was back.

 

She didn't spent that much time in Gotham, she didn't like it and he did dare say the feeling was mutual. Kori was a being so removed from the grime, the fog, and the stench of the city that it felt as if a catastrophic event will occur is she stayed too much time within the city borders. But apparently she was worried about Jason and so she planned to stay.

 

“Don’t you think a six-foot-two alien princess following Jason Todd around will draw suspicion? The secret identity ruining type?”

 

“Jason, stop sulking,” she said.

 

He grunted.

 

“They probably already know who you are,” she continued.

 

“The murderous quartet?” he asked.

 

“Yes.” She nodded.

 

She was probably right. Some areas of the warehouse were littered with plastic strips hanging from the ceiling from the time they’d had cock fights as entertainment--before Kori adamantly banned them. They were for the blood spatter, you see. They kept them because in their line of work they inevitably required space to interrogate or put the fear of god into the scum of the earth. Things like this could potentially link Jason Todd to the Red Hood if someone went looking.

 

“What did you do to have this...Black Mask employ this kind of people to eliminate you?” Kori asked.

 

Jason adopted a faux thinking pose. “I took three quarters of his drug shipments, sunk down his gun cargoes and fired a bazooka into his office,” he said. “I also called him a shitbag. He probably didn't like that.”

 

Kori was not impressed.

 

 

 

That night he learned that the girls from the new duet weren’t sisters, and that the rest of the staff had named them Knockout and the Princess but he couldn’t tell which one was which.

 

He also saw _him_ again, this time he was wearing a black suit with no shirt underneath, he looked at Jason overt the rim of his glass but didn’t stop talking to the blond waiter that was practically on his lap. After a while Jason saw him put a hand atop the boy’s tight and say something to him and the waiter left.

 

Jason could read that well enough, except apparently he didn’t because he was genuinely surprised when the man sat down next to him at the bar. He bumped his shoulder against Jason’s, shoot him a sidelong glance and ordered a drink.

 

When Jason didn’t say anything, the man laughed, seemingly finding Jason’s inability to speak endlessly amusing. His voice was low and smoky and it shoot a shiver through his body.

 

“Richard Kane,” he said, offered Jason a hand in introduction.

 

“Todd Peters,” he answered.

 

Richard shoot him a mysterious smile.

  

Then his phone pinged and the moment he read the message his entire demeanor changed. Suddenly his whole body screamed violence, so cold it burned, barely contained and the fucking sexiest thing Jason had ever seen.

 

It gave Jason whiplash, made him dizzy. There was a moment like the moment before a bullet hits flesh in which Jason could've run--maybe-- and wouldn’t have been hit--probably-- but he stayed perfectly still.

 

When Richard looked back up at Jason, it was like shattered glass: sharp, like he wanted to cut him open, ruin him, make him _bleed_.

 

He didn’t understand what’ve happened and Richard didn’t explain but, Jason reasoned, he’d been shot before.

 

Jason ended up pressed against the outside of the warehouse, Richard pinning him down with his body, kissing degenerated into biting or the other way around, Jason got in a kidney punch when Richard bit into his neck so hard he drew blood. This made him laugh. Jason fought him just enough to make it good, just enough so he could feel it but still let him climb on top of him, touch him like he wanted to possess him and come with his eyes shut.

 

 

 

Gotham Insider News interrupted its constant debate on whether the Joker was a super villain or a patriot, to report the hostage situation of Roman Sionis. Tough _hostage_ was giving old Black Mask too much credit in his current situation, Jason thought. _Bait_ was more like it.

 

The camera was recording the white clad body of the crime boss bound to a warehouse rack pole, about 26 feet above the ground with a black bag over his head. Heh, Black Bag.

 

There was movement and a figure landed on the rack’s upper railing and put a smoke grenade at the feet of the villain, then stayed perched there, unbothered by the smoke. Renegade had done this various times before, judging by the amount of grenades now laying there. It was almost like a performance, a scene put out for a purpose that made sense in Renegade’s mind.

 

A horde of Black Mask men came out of the darkness like a pack of wild dogs and were driven back by a rain of bullets. Ravager dropped down to the ground followed by Jericho and Terra. A couple of minutes later Jason could see the ground covered in teeth.

 

They were not killing anyone. No, this was a _warning_. They were making a point.

 

The news anchor was talking urgently but Jason couldn’t hear her. A siren song started playing on the background and he saw Renegade cock his head and snarl when the GTO cars pulled on the parking lot. Gotham Terror Oppression was an elite task force made up of the best police officers of the GCPD and the best approximation of Bat-technology the Joker could scrape up. The officers stepped out of their jeeps in tactical gear and armed to the teeth.

 

Renegade stood up on the railing, his smile said, _which one of you fuckers can get to me first?_

 

The transmission was cut off because civilians had to be evacuated.

 

Jason felt a flare of familiarity too vague to examine, too light to hold onto. It was overpowered by the afterimage of Renegade behind his eyelids, the pure intoxicating danger that the man encapsulated.

 

He checked in with Roy what he already knew: the contract on his head had been terminated.

 

 

 

First, Jason heard the hollow sound of the doors being slammed shut, _then_ he heard the voice of the man with the megaphone ordering the Red Hood to get out. By the time the GTO forces were swarming the club, he couldn’t hear anything over the screams.

 

He caught Roy by the biceps when he bumped into him and steered him toward the garage.

 

“Where’s Kori?” Roy screamed.

 

Jason would also like to know but he knew that if the Joker’s stupid squad of super cops had one ounce of gray matter, they’d have gotten her first. They had to get out if they wanted to rescue her.

 

They didn’t get far. Each GTO operative was like a watered down version of Batman but Jason was still in black jeans and a pinstripe shirt, Roy was not better.

 

Bullets cleaved a jagged path through the air and Jason tasted blood on his tongue, he was sure he had broken ribs and fingers.

 

Montoya was screaming at him. “Don’t be stupid Todd, just give yourself up!”

 

None of them anticipated the boulder that came crashing through the wall and knocked over both Gordon and Montoya. Atop of it was a very familiar woman.

 

“C’mon we have to get out of here, I didn’t hit them that hard, they’ll get up any minute,” she said.

 

“What the fuck,” Jason said.

 

The bassist of his band rolled her eyes. “I said _move_ , where’s the redhead?”

 

“What the fuck,” Roy said, emerging from behind the bar, bow in hand.

 

She glared at them like they were something nasty she’d stepped onto by accident. A convertible came through the hole that used to be a wall and stopped right beside them. Richard Kane was driving it and on the back was the guitarist of the duo.

 

The realization hit him like a bullet and lodged in his body. He was panting and couldn’t do more than stare at Richard, his mind was white noise.  

 

“Jason!” Richard snapped. “I said _get inside_.”

 

The sound of his name was what snapped him out of it. _But of course he knew, of course_.

 

He didn’t have any other choice so he climbed into the passenger seat, Roy had already climbed in the back with… Ravager? Fuck. They were _fucked_.

 

Richard pulled out of there like an absolute maniac. Jason took a stuttering breath.

 

“We have to save Kori,” Roy said.

 

“Jericho is getting her out,” Richard-- _was that even his fucking name?_

 

“You’re Renegade,” Jason said stupidly.

 

“Duh,” Ravager said.

 

“Where are we going?”

 

“I can’t tell you,” Renegade said.

 

“What do you fucking mean--” Jason didn’t see the punch coming and after that he didn’t see anything at all.

 

 

 

When he woke up they were in some kind of tunnel system, the ceiling was high and the walls were old. He’d been living in Gotham all his life and he hadn’t know this existed.

_Were they even still in Gotham?_ He probed the cut on the inside of his cheek with his tongue, it tasted like copper so he hadn’t been out that long.

 

He located both Roy and Kori on the floor near him, they weren’t bound but he didn’t kid himself into thinking that meant anything.

 

When Deathstroke's ex ragtag team entered the room, they were in full costume: orange, grey, black and red. Red.

 

Renegade was cladded in a blood red suit, it hugged his body like it was in love with him, it was Jason’s first time seeing it in real life, it was deathly beautiful but was got to him was that he wasn’t wearing a mask. Richard’s blue, blue eyes stared back at him. They were stone.

 

“Where are we?” Jason forced his voice to sound steady.

 

“Somewhere safe,” Renegade said.

 

Jason snorted, he had a lot to say to _that_ , but before he could open his mouth, an artificial voice--Jericho’s-- cut in. “If we wanted to kill you or harm you we could’ve done it while you were unconscious.” It seemed to come from his belt.

 

“Not even a week ago you _did_ try to kill me,” Jason growled.

 

“Yes, and we _were_ _going to_ , but Black Mask broke the contract. He wanted to pay less, so we made an example out of him,” Ravager said.   

 

“She’s stirring.” Terra noted.

 

“So she is,” Renegade hummed, staring down at Kori.

 

“Hey princess, take it easy. What did you do to her?” Jason snapped.

 

“She’s fine, I had to put her to sleep, is all.” Jericho fucking sub-vocalized.

 

Kori opened her eyes and it only took her a second to launch herself at the group of mercenaries. Renegade stood aside to let Ravager jump to meet Kori. Jason had once watched her friend take down an Amazonian, she was an impressive warrior and her flight and powers put her on a higher level than anyone in this room. But Ravager had infiltrated their lives with the purpose of killing Jason, it was a given that she’d studied how to take down all his allies.

 

Ravager evaded Kori’s blast and seized her by the throat, twisting in midair and using their combined momentum to slam Kori to the ground. Immediately a gun bigger than his arm was pressed under her jaw. Kori looked like she could’ve burned Ravager alive but stayed where she was.

 

The sound of guns being unholstered and swords being unsheathed resonated through the room, at the end of it Jason had a gun to Ravager’s head, Jericho and Renegade had two swords in a cross over his neck. Across the room, Roy was conscious again and aiming an arrow at Ravager, the muzzle of Terra’s gun against his temple.

 

“What do you think?” Renegade asked Ravager, conversationally.

 

“Punks,” she hissed.

 

That pulled a laugh from him, his statuesque beauty was momentarily interrupted by it. Jason was horrified but not surprised that he could still think about him like that with a blade against his throat.

 

“Yeah,” he said. “But they have potential.”

 

“If you say so.” She didn’t look happy about it.

 

“Put the weapons down, it’s over, no one has to get hurt,” Renegade said.

 

“You first,” Jason ground out.

 

Renegade laughed and he remembered how it had felt against his skin.  “I don’t think so.”

 

“I had to try,” Jason sighed.

 

 

 

“Someone sold you out to the GTO.” Renegade said, leaning against the doorframe of his computer room where everyone else was poured over screens, puzzling over the extent of the damage at the club.

 

“Yeah? I hadn’t noticed.” Jason winced and half expected to feel the steel of a blade, cool against his skin but Renegade just rolled his eyes.

 

Jason was leaning against the opposite site of the doorframe, mirroring Dick’s position. That was what he’d been asked to be called.

 

Jason didn’t ask him if he was actually going to kill him because that was a stupid question and he didn’t asked why he’d fucked him instead because he wasn’t ready to hear the answer, so he asked something else.   

 

“What do you want from me?”

 

Dick looked at him for a long time and Jason could read on his face all the things he wasn’t going to say.

 

“I want you to work for me.”

 

Jason should’ve seen that one coming. The man had been brought up by Deathstroke after all.

 

“And if I say no?” Jason forced himself to ask.

 

Renegade shrugged, like it was all the same to him. “You can leave, but why would you? What do you have left?”

 

Jason glared at him, which he ignored, and then he just kept looking at him. He noticed a few things for the first time: his nose had a little ridge like it had been broken before and it might’ve actually been a little big on another face, he also had a white scar--like someone had stabbed him with a screwdriver--on the corner of his mouth.

 

Fuck it.

 

 

 

When the Joker went back to Arkham, Gotham stitched herself back together but something kept shining between the stitches; some days it was light streaming out, other days it was boneless darkness.

 

The Red Hood still liked to stand over the city to catch a glimpse of whatever it was and then turned to the sound on the other side of the roof.

**Author's Note:**

> A lot of imagery and inspiration I got from two excellent poetry collections: War of the Foxes by Richard Siken and Bone Map: Poems by Sara Eliza Johnson.


End file.
